#twelvecountdown

Start the Clock: Face the Raven (25/39)

9.06: the woman who lived

Start the Clock ⏱️ 08:08

Start the Clock: Christmas Countdown 

In celebration of the Twelfth Doctor’s era, from November 16th to December 24th we’ll be counting down each episode from The Doctor Falls to Deep Breath. Metas, fanfiction, edits, videos, fan art, etc. will all be accepted for each day of each episode. 

Please do not re-post the works of others and please keep the entries hate-free. Tag your posts with  #twelvecountdown within the first five tags, as we will be tracking the tag and reblogging all the posts to here. If you are not comfortable with posting from your blog, feel free to submit or send us an ask. If you are late in posting or miss a day that you wanted to do, do not worry. We will accept late entries. 

Do not feel obligated to participate in every episode for the countdown. You may take part in as many days or a day as you choose. This celebration is not strict to just the Twelfth Doctor alone in his episodes. Feel free to do entries on other characters and their arcs or storylines within each episode, or just anything you liked the most about each or any episode. 

Steven Moffat does this particular trick in his writing, where he writes for multiple types of viewers at the same time.

He writes for the casual viewer by providing intrigue through the appearance of another Doctor on screen, but he also writes for the hardcore fans. He writes for the people who will immediately recognise David Bradley's voice and will, just from those few lines of dialogue, be able to piece together that this is the first Doctor just before his regeneration.

Interestingly, Moffat also writes for fans of the future, who are rewatching this episode and are already aware that the cliffhanger is coming. Some cliffhangers solely rely on shock value and are only fun because you don’t know how the story is being resolved, but once you do they lose all their appeal and are simply a footnote to the rest of the story. But then there are cliffhangers which are just great moments: The Doctors “I’m coming to get you” speech to Rose and the Daleks in Bad Wolf, the triumphant act break of Wicked or Luke and Rey staring at each other on top of a Cliff in The Force Awakens. All these are thrilling moments that exceed the usual appeal of a cliffhanger because they do more than just ask a question. They hold up over time because they have a certain joy to them, so even when you already know them by heart every time you watch them you still feel that same excitement and thrill as goosebumps form on your skin like they did on the first watch. 

Regarding The Doctor Falls, this is of course in part down to Rachel Talalay’s phenomenal direction. The moment when it clicks and the viewer makes the connection to whats going on, isn’t when Bradley announces himself to be the original Doctor, but when we are shown that blurred silhouette with the long white scarf. The former is simply a confirmation of the suspicion carefully seeded in the viewer's mind by the latter. Through the use of the snowstorm, Talalay evokes the aesthetic of 60s black and white television and manages to sell the viewer on the resemblance between the two actors before Bradleys face is even visible on the screen.